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Did You Know?
by Jessica on May 23rd, 20131. Did you know that the Frankfort Public Library District is on Pinterest? Check out our boards for ideas on books to read at http://pinterest.com/fpld/.
2. Did you know the Bookmobile is starting their summer run? View their schedule at http://www.frankfortlibrary.org/summer. There is nothing that says summer like the Bookmobile stopping in your neighborhood!
3. Did you know that Adults can participate in the Summer Reading Club too? Summer Reading starts June 10th for all ages!
4. Did you know you could view our website and services on your smart phone at http://library.booksite.com/5276/mobile/ or via a link on our home page?
5. Did you know the Friends of the Frankfort Public Library District donates thousands of dollars and volunteers tons of hours to the library every year? For more information on the Friends see their webpage http://www.frankfortlibrary.org/about_us/friends.
SWAN Catalog
by Jessica on April 1st, 2013The Orland Park Public Library is no longer a member of the same catalog (SWAN) as the Frankfort Public Library District. Frankfort Library items can no longer be immediately checked in at the Orland Park Public Library and Orland Library items can not be checked in at the Frankfort Library.
Items will need to travel back to the owning library before being checked in, which can incur late fees. To have your account up to date and without late fees it is best to return Frankfort items to the Frankfort Public Library District or other SWAN Catalog libraries.
Any holds placed on the Orland Park Public Library items will continue on to the next SWAN library that owns the available item.
Books FTW!
by Sarah on March 13th, 2013
Award season rolls around every year and immediately makes me feel like rushing out to read ALL the books on the award list that I haven’t read yet. Which is implausible since I’m usually already reading so much, but still!
M
orris Award
The Morris Award is a relatively new award for first-time authors, so it’s a nice one to look at for fresh new voices in teen books.
The winner for this year was Seraphina by Rachel Hartman:
In a world where dragons and humans coexist in an uneasy truce and dragons can assume human form, Seraphina, whose mother died giving birth to her, grapples with her own identity amid magical secrets and royal scandals, while she struggles to accept and develop her extraordinary musical talents.
The Printz Award is the award for teen literature, in my opinion. It’s the one I look forward to most every year (aside from the Morris). It’s given based on the literary merit of the books published in the year of the award.
The winner this year was In Darkness by Nick Lake.
In the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake, fifteen-year-old Shorty, a poor gang member from the slums of Site Soleil, is trapped in the rubble of a ruined hospital, and as he grows weaker he has visions and memories of his life of violence, his lost twin sister, and of Toussaint L'Ouverture, who liberated Haiti from French rule in the 1804.
The Alex Awards are given to ten adult books that appeal to teens and were written the previous year. These are the ten books for this year!
Caring is Creepy by David Zimmerman
Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman
Juvenile in Justice by Richard Ross
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf
One Shot at Forever by Chris Ballard
Pure by Juliana Baggott
The Round House by Louise Erdrich
Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple
This is an award that honors an author for their body of work in young adult literature, and I’m so pleased to say that this year it was for Tamora Pierce, whom I truly love! Her work is mostly high fantasy awesomeness. If you like fantasy and have not read her yet, you must! I recommend this one:
Alanna, the First Adventure11 year old Alanna, who wants to be a knight even though she’s a girl, disguises herself as a boy to become a royal page, learning many hard lessons along her path to high adventure.
But there are tons of others, and her latest series is the Beka Cooper series, which starts with Terrier.
When sixteen-year-old Beka becomes "Puppy" to a pair of "Dogs," as the Provost's Guards are called, she uses her police training, natural abilities, and a touch of magic to help them solve the case of a murdered baby in Tortall's Lower City.
The 2013 nonfiction award goes to the best nonfiction book for ages 12-18 published from January 1st – December 31st, and this year it goes to a great, great nonfiction author Steve Sheinkin for Bomb.
I haven’t read this one yet, but can’t wait! It’s subtitle is “The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon.” This is about the Manhattan project and spies, and it’s Steve Sheinkin!
A standard-bearer for good literature since 1950, the National Book Award for Young People's Literature is given to an American citizen who publishes a youth book from December 1st the previous year to November 30th of the current year.
2012 WINNER:
Goblin Secrets by William Alexander
FINALISTS:
Out of Reach by Carrie Arcos
Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick
Endangered by Eliot Schrefer
Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin (Look at Mr. Sheinkin, winning honors right and left!!)
There you have it! Teen book awards in a nutshell. Now go forth and read!
Ms. Sarah, YA Librarian and Sucker for Award Winners
iBook, E-book, We All Scream for E-Books!
by Sarah on January 28th, 2013
Perhaps you are one of the hundreds (and hundreds!) of people who’ve gotten an e-reader, smartphone, or tablet over the holidays, and now you’re looking for ways to get more titles to read or listen to on your device. Or maybe you’ve had one for awhile and are now looking to get some free e-books and e-audio. OR maybe you don't really know what all this e-book hubbub is about and might want to learn. Well, you’re in luck! The library’s got your back. We’re here (despite the “war” going on between publishers and libraries over e-books [skip ad to get to article]) to help you keep reading into the future.
Not only do we circulate Kindles and Nooks for you to use, but we also work with a company called Overdrive to provide you with free e-books and downloadable audiobooks. You'll definitely want to check out the Media On Demand site; that's where you can go to search for the titles available through Overdrive. (Note: Overdrive is the name of the vendor we buy our e-books and the software from, but Media On Demand is the name of our ebook catalog site and the consortium of other libraries we share e-books with.)
Now, how do you get e-books and audiobooks online? The basic steps to downloading books from the library regardless of your device are easy.
The Basics to Downloading
1.) Go to www.mediaondemand.org.
2.) Download the Overdrive Application (if needed). Note: You may also need to create an Adobe Digital ID depending on your device.
3.) Search for a book you want to read.
4.) Place it on hold OR add it to your cart.
5.) Download the book to your device and enjoy!
5.5) Seek help as needed. Sometimes you run into more problems (for instance, remember to sync after downloading if using the Kindle Fire), and that’s when you can bring your device into the library or call the librarian. However, Overdrive also has a fantastic help system set up.
That’s the basics; once you download the Overdrive software and/or the app (see instructions for your device or sign up for one of our classes on how to get e-books [Media On Demand workshops]), all you need to do is find a book to read...
Right. Well, sometimes that’s the hard part for people: finding a book. Sometimes you just want to browse to find a good book--but browsing’s not always easy when the books are not on the shelf right in front of you. Here’re my top tricks to help you browse our e-book catalog.
Top Tricks to Browsing E-Book Catalog
1.) Use the sidebars. The drop-down bars they’ve added help you jump right into Teen Fiction, Teen Nonfiction, Youth audiobooks, etc. Pretty nifty!
2.) Advanced Search is awesome sauce. Not only can you limit the format (say you only want MP3 audiobooks to listen to on your smartphone or only Kindle e-books), but you can also limit the subjects as well.
3.) Limit to what’s available (or be prepared to wait).
4.) Know what you want already. If you already know the titles you want, then you can just search for the titles to see if they are available in the format you want. (However, keep in mind again that publishers aren’t happy making titles available in e-book format to libraries, and your title may not be available.)
5.) Don’t despair! There are lots of books available as e-book and downloadable audio. As I make my blog posts and my lists, I usually put a * next to a title that’s available through Media On Demand. Also, titles available as audio file or e-book are often listed in our regular SWAN catalog as well. I also put the * on the bookmarks I make for teens in Land of YA, as well.
If all else fails, try some of these E-BOOKS...
If all else fails, try some of these E-AUDIO . . .
There are so many more choices available, and if you need any suggestions, don't hesitate to ask, but for now... that's all I got.
Keep in mind as well that there are other resources where you can get free e-books, as well. For instance...
- Project Gutenberg, which includes 40,000 free ebooks (epub books, free kindle books, downloadable or web-based).
- Librivox, a collection of free audiobooks in the public domain (i.e. mostly classics). (Downloadable for your phone, too!)
- Amazon! Yes, the biggest online retailer has free e-books. Just search "free ebooks" and see what you find. A LOT of classics are available for free since they are out of copyright (i.e. public domain).
- Barnes & Noble, not to be outdone by Amazon, has a lovely selection of free e-books, as well. Also, check out their blog with "free Fridays" where they highlight a free ebook.
- Directory of Open Access Books, which has books from all over the world and lots of nonfiction choices.
- Books section of iTunes. Again, just like Amazon and Barnes & Noble, you can search free e-books in iTunes and voila! Find some pretty sweet classics and surprisingly enough other cool things for free!
So, you see, there are plenty of ways to get free e-books out there, and if you're like me, you'll try them ALL. But (and I may be biased here) the library's got your back most of all!
--Ms. Sarah, Youth Services Librarian & Media On Demand Fiend
Z is for Zombie.
by Sarah on December 3rd, 2012For those of you who don't know, we had a fabulously fun zombie event in October 2012 for the teens. Here is the graphic novel they created for the event.
Now, for you zombie lovers out there, I have a list of my favorite zombie things for you.
1.) The Walking Dead. Okay, yes, bad librarian, but I haven't read the graphic novels of these, just watched the show. But the show is so good! Definitely not for the faint of heart, but definitely a fantastic rendition of zombies! 4.5/5 stars.
Please note that this show is pretty adult, with a rating of TV-14.
This is a collection of stories that started as a blog war between authors over which is better: zombies or unicorns? So they got a bunch of their author friends together to write stories, some for "team unicorn" and some for "team zombie." You read, you decide which is better. Personally, as much as I love zombies, after reading Garth Nix's story about unicorns, I'm a team unicorn convert. 4/5 stars.
3.) Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride.
Sam, fast food worker and college dropout, discovers he's a necromancer (which means he can control the dead). This book may have a talking zombie head in it and werewolves and ghosts and all that--but it is hilarious and one of my favorite books of all time. Awesome sauce. A sequel, Necromancing the Stone, just came out and I cannot wait to read it! 5/5 stars.
4.) The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan.
Mary lives in a village surrounded by zombies. The zombies can't get in, but no one gets out of the village either. They call the zombie horde surrounding the village the "forest of hands and teeth." Well, one day, Mary and some others have no choice but to try to flee--and much fear and mayhem ensue, just the way we zombie-lovers like it. This is the first book, but the second and third have different narrators. Still, you'll want to read this one first because the characters in each book appear in subsequent titles. The second is The Dead-Tossed Waves and the third is The Dark and Hollow Places. 4/5 stars.
5.) The Enemy by Charles Higson.
Imagine a world where all the adults turn into zombies and all those left are under 18. Yup, pretty creepy. This one is very gory and full of lots and lots of death, so not for the faint of heart again, but pretty fun to read, too. There's also a prequel and another book out for this series! 4/5 stars.
Other zombie things to try out that are not necessarily my favorites but are pretty popular in the adult section: World War Z, which is coming out as a movie with Brad Pitt; The Passage by Justin Cronin (an adult fiction book); and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith (which I object to solely out of extreme love for the original Pride and Prejudice). Finally, I just heard abotu this movie which is based off the book, Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion, and I can't wait to read it!
